WI: Prussia does not annex Nassau?
- Thread starter Wendell
- Start date
There would probably be a minor political crisis that ends with Adolphe either inheriting Luxembourg and giving up Nassau, or keeping Nassau and renouncing Luxembourg. Luxembourg is far too important strategically for the great powers to allow Germany to take it in this manner.
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Hm, hard to say really. Legally speaking, there was nothing preventing a Nassuvian-Luxembourgish union. So we could see an independent Luxembourg in a personal union with the Duchy of Nassau, at least for a time. Assuming that everything else happens as OTL, the problem would resolve itself when Guillaume IV dies, as he only had daughters, and Nassau functioned under Salic law. So the union would peacefully dissolve itself by 1912. That asks the question of what happens to Nassau itself though, as the legitimate line of Nassau-Weilburg died with Guillaume IV; perhaps the morganatic issue of his uncle Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm are equalized and made heirs to the Duchy. IDK.
Could William determine the succession by will, subject to the approval of the German Bundesrat?
If so, he could leave Nassau to one daughter (Salic Law notwithstanding) and Luxemburg to the other.
BTW, Luxemburg also had the Salic Law, which is why it separated from the Netherlands (which didn't) in 1890 Yet this did not prevent William's daughters inheriting it. Any reason why the same couldn't apply in Nassau?
The Nassau family pact applied to all their imperial possessions i believe and allowed for semi salic succession on the extinction only of all the branches of the Nassau family - The Netherlands not being part of those imperial possessions) - of course the morganatic Counts of Merenberg would perhaps complain (as they did when William IV of Luxembourg declared his daughter as heir as he regarded himself as the last male agnate of the house of Nassau) As above there is nothing to prevent Nassau being held with Luxembourg - Nassau was only lost because they backed the wrong horse in 1866 anyway.
You are sure about his conversion? I knew who he NEVER converted but simply married a Catholic princess and let her raise their children in their religion
No I'm not. But I do feel like his children would not have been raised Catholic if he was still the duke of protestant Nassau.
